The NFL’s senior vice president of broadcasting, Howard Katz, said games with playoff implications will all be played either at 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. ET because it was “fair” to the fans.

Clearly, the NFL is hoping to create buzz around the games to increase ratings at the earlier times to get what will be called a ratings win.

The league’s Sunday night ratings spiral was likely to take a horrible hit if the nighttime game had been played.

CNN reports that the last time the league scheduled a game for New Year’s Eve, ratings plummeted 25 percent:

The last time the NFL held a Sunday night football game on New Year’s Eve was in 2006, when the Chicago Bears hosted the Green Bay Packers. It was quarterback Brett Favre’s last game with the Packers (and widely expected to be his last game ever). Still, only 13.4 million people watched that game, about a quarter fewer than the average Sunday Night Football game that season.

The ratings for the December 15 “Sunday Night Football” game were down 35 percent from last year at this time. CNN reports that NFL ratings on ESPN that same weekend were down 9 percent and were down 27 percent on CBS. Meanwhile, Fox saw a 6 percent improvement in its ratings. Overall, NFL ratings have seen a 9 percent hit on the season.

CNN reports that the rescheduling means that NBC is stuck on the sidelines for this week’s games.

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